Often I stumble across something about adoption that I didn’t know. Would you believe that former N.C. senator Jesse Helms was a huge help to adoption in this country? I know for some of you that is gonna be hard to take (admit it, some of you just threw up a little bit in your mouth).
The right wing curmudgeon co-sponsorted the Helms-Landrieu Bill, which became the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 and helped get ratified the Hague Convention in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. Bastard Nation even worked with him and he delivered one of their statements to committee himself. The purpose of the bill was to create a more ethical situation for adopting child from overseas as well as create a structure for the process.
“This legislation also combats abuses in the international adoption process, such as misportrayal of medical conditions, exorbitant fees, child kidnapping, baby smuggling, and coercion of birth mothers.”
“This significant legislation is intended to build some accountability into agencies that provide intercountry adoption services in the United States, while strengthening the hand of the Secretary of State in ensuring that U.S. adoption agencies engage in an ethical manner to find homes for children,” said Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, a chief sponsor.
Who knew - Jesse Helms spoke out for Ethical Adoption. We still have a ways to go on the international and national front to ensure all adoptions are ethical, you can’t deny recognition of the Hague Convention rules was a step in the right direction.
Part of what might have been motivating Helms was that he and his wife adopted an older child from an orphanage here in N.C.
He doesn’t talk about it publicly — though doing so might make it harder for liberals to paint him as a stonehearted mossback — but conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and his wife, Dot, adopted their son Charlie after reading about his Christmas wish.
“Long before Jesse got into politics, just before Christmas, a story appeared in the newspaper about an orphanage,” recounts longtime Helms friend Tom Ellis, a Raleigh, N.C., lawyer. “One of the children was at age 9 a little older than most of the others, and he said what he’d like for Christmas was a home and a mommy and daddy. Jesse and Dot read that story and said, `Let’s go talk to that little boy. We ought to adopt him.’”
“At the time he could barely stand,” Ellis says of Charlie, who suffered from cerebral palsy But three operations by the late Lennox Baker, a distinguished orthopedic surgeon, “made it so the boy could walk” and cemented the senator’s long involvement in battling that disease.
(from Insight on the News: A Capitol commitment to kids - Congressional families with adopted children, Nov 24, 1997, by Sean Paige)
Helms, now 85 and suffering from dementia and other physical challenges, lives in a convalescent home in Raleigh. You can say a lot of things about Jesse Helms’ tenure in the Senate but along with changing his mind about AIDS and working with Bono, this is one of those things he did get right.
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Posted by Michelle (Mom)
that has been in effect since 2001. Oregon law allows an adult adoptee access to their OBC. It also provides a mechanism whereby birth parents may indicate their preference for contact by filling out a contact preference form. This form gives a birth parent the option of being contacted directly, contacted through an intermediary, or not contacted at all by an adoptee. According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, as of May 31, 2005, 8,486 adoptees had ordered a copy of their OBC. 
